


Beginner Books

by simplyprologue



Series: Careful the Tale You Tell (Children Will Listen) [14]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Charlotte-fic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Kid Fic, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 07:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“She’s a genius. Our daughter is a genius.” The McAvoys, 2019.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginner Books

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pipinthesuburbs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipinthesuburbs/gifts).



> **A/N:** For Pippa, who requested McBaby fluff. How I can go from killing Mac five times in one fic to writing tooth-rotting stuff in a few days, we will never know. As noted in the summary, this fic takes place in 2019, meaning that Charlotte is 5, Teddy is 3, and Josie is 2. And for the record, _Go, Dog, Go!_ was also my first book that I read all on my own. (Other contenders were _Goodnight Gorilla_ and _Green Eggs and Ham_ , for those interested.)

She likes dinnertime on the weekends, when it’s not just her wrangling food into the kids, trying to juggle who doesn’t like what this week before wrangling them into the bath and then shepherding them into bed. Not that it’s ever that simple with three young children, and usually the evening is punctuated by tears and someone refusing to put away their toys or get out of the bath and it’s damn near routine this point just to put the kids in the master bedroom, first, so they can watch Dad on the TV while she works on whoever is the biggest mess any particular day in the large tub in the master bathroom.

(When she and Will decided on the tub, its utility as a means of bathing two or three kids at once had hardly been on their minds, but Mac takes her blessings where she can find them. And there’s a system now, of signals, now that Charlotte’s old enough. Not that it doesn’t drive her half mad some nights that Will tapping his pen on the anchor desk a certain way gets the kids more easily to bed than her forcibly putting them under the sheets.

She doesn’t know how much of _News Night_ goes completely over their heads, but the kids definitely know that when Daddy taps his pen on the desk a certain way during the B or C block that it’s time to go to sleep.)

But on the weekends, Will’s home for dinner.

Which, at the least, makes things easier.

“They’re occupied. For now,” he says, wrapping his arms around her from behind. “And since when was the inside of the pack-n-play purple?”

She snorts. “Charlie decided to give Josie contraband. Glitter glue. I got the glitter off, but not the glue.”

“Ah.”

His hands begin to wander from waist, which is good, because otherwise she’d tell him to find something to do, like finish clearing the table.

(This is where the “at the least” part is relevant.)

Sighing as she continues rinsing their plates (not that she really has to, they have a top-of-the-line dishwasher, but it helps keep her sane and it’s something to do while she keeps an eye on Jane Barrow at 7 o’clock and the kids get their last bursts of energy out in the den next to the kitchen) she leans back against his chest, letting Will take on some of her weight. He kisses her cheek, and then her ear, before sending one hand to tease his fingers at the waistband of her jeans and the other to cup her breast.

“I’m gonna get wet,” she complains, but not really, laughing as he deliberately jostles her so that she causes water to slosh out of the sink and onto her front.

He kisses her neck. “I thought that was the point.”

“You’re terrible. That was terrible,” she says, and then groans, rolling her head to further evaluate the remnants of their meal on the kitchen table because as much as she’d like to turn the post-dinnertime routine into something recreational, her priorities remain. “Go clean up the mess you and Teddy made.”

(Their middle is currently in a phase where he’ll only eat something if he’s seen his father eat it first, and if possible, directly off Will’s plate. Which is something that they’re assuming Teddy will outgrow soon, but at the moment it leaves an unfortunate trail of dinner between their two plates.)

Whining softly, he continues to kiss her neck.

The noise that escapes her mouth is one of distinct amusement, and she removes one hand from the soapy water in the sink to point to the table. “Clean first. Then you can try to get into my pants.”

Quirking an eyebrow at her, he moves towards the table with a sponge. “Try?”

“Clean.” Because there is no fucking way she’s scraping dried marinara sauce off the table tomorrow morning, even if she likes that Will gets a little overexcited the nights he gets to eat dinner with them at home—the occasional weeknight dinner of takeout in her office with the kids before she leaves the office for the night isn’t quite the same thing. Although it does seem like one of the kids crawling into his lap is one of the few similarities.

(Tonight it was Josie, and he held her with one arm while feeding Teddy a meatball with the other while she and Charlotte discussed her new library book at the other end of the table.)

And cleaning up does go more quickly, between the two of them, and she never really bothers to watch the weekend news too quickly, since the weekend anchors are younger and more anxious and rarely ever dare to say something to cause her any trouble—by which she means she trusts Maggie, who’s currently anchoring the weekends at 7 o’clock.

Instead, the water pouring from the faucet lulls her into a slight daze as Will moves around her, taking out the trash, setting the coffeemaker for the morning, taking the dishes that she’s rinsed and stacking them in the dishwasher.

“Is it too quiet?”

She realizes that she hasn’t really been paying attention; Josie was tunneling between them in bed before the sun was even up.

“Hmm?”

Leaning his hip onto the stretch of counter to her left, he looks in the direction of the den with a vague look of concern on his face. “It’s too quiet.”

Mac would rather not scrape glitter glue or any other substance from the kids’ craft table off any more furniture today. Pursing her lips, she dries her hands on the front of her jeans before walking through to the hall connecting the kitchen to the den with the full intention of sending them all upstairs early to put on their pajamas.

Instead she’s stopped short by the sight of the three of them all on the couch, Charlie in the middle as she stares determinedly at the paperback copy of _Go, Dog, Go!_ that she brought home from the school library.

“Have we read that one yet?” she whispers when Will’s hand comes to rest on her hip.

“A while ago.” He brings his mouth next to her ear. “Maybe they’re reading it at school?”

“I don’t think so.”

Charlie indicates for Teddy to turn the page with a distinctly authoritarian air, and begins to read—“Some big dogs and little dogs going around in cars.” Josie, with her right thumb lodged firmly between her lips, uses her left hand to point at the picture on the page. Charlie nods. “A dog out of a car.” Her eyebrows puzzle together. “Twah— _two_ big dogs going up.”

Josie’s hand reaches out again, tracing a loop on the page. Frowning, Teddy moves her hand back into her lap. “I can’t see,” he whines. “Stop touching it.”

“Quiet,” Charlie says, turning the page on her own.

“I think she’s actually—” Mac says, blinking rapidly, and not because she might be close to crying or anything. Definitely not. “She’s definitely sounding it out, that’s not memorization.”

“Is she supposed to be able to do this?” Will asks with a tone of pride, craning to look past her.

“She’s five, I mean—”

They’ve both studied the milestones, read all the articles and books and Charlotte’s not even in kindergarten yet but they read to her every day, they read to all of them. Have been since they were in utero. And recently Charlie’s been reading along with some of her favorite books, reciting really, recognizing some words on sight. But not _this._

Her heart feels like it’s about to beat out of her chest.

“She’s a genius. Our daughter is a genius,” Will says, sounding as in awe as she feels.

_The green dog is up._

“A genius who can read,” she murmurs, trying to keep her voice from wavering, and feels a distinct urge to rush in there and make a fuss over her; Will tries, but she catches his wrist and pulls him back out of the kid’s line of sight. “Don’t go in there.”

He looks at her as if she's sprouted a second head. “What?”

“Let her finish. If she sees us she might stop,” she explains, and bites her lip. “I mean, who knows how long she's been playing us like fools. This didn't just happen overnight, she had to have—”

“She is your child," he muses, winding his arms around her waist again and, pulling her back flush to his chest, kisses the side of her head.

Scoffing, but not bothering to hide the grin on her face, she peers back at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs, smirking. “I’d believe it if I was told that you pretended you couldn’t read just so that people kept reading to you every time you asked.”

“I get what I want," she murmurs, rolling her eyes. 

“Was I complaining?” he asks, teasing. “I like when you get what you want.”

With a wave of her hand, she silences him and returns her focus to the kids—pausing to push her hair behind her ears, Charlie frowns again, adopting a look of absolute concentration that MacKenzie has come to believe is the exact facsimile of Will’s. “One dog is up on a—ho—hue—house,” she says slowly but definitively, and Mac finally thinks to reach to take her BlackBerry out of her pocket, turn on the video camera, and start recording just as Josie rests her head on Charlie's shoulder. 

“Oh my god, she’s really reading,” she squeals quietly, bouncing on her toes. Sniffling, she zooms in as closely as she can without trashing the picture quality. She  _feels_ Will watching her, but makes no attempt to wipe the definitely-not-tears from her eyes. 

“Are you crying?”

“Shut up, I’m trying to video it.”

They're both quiet for a few pages' worth of Charlotte's reading, but then Will whispers, "Send it to me," breath hot in her ear. 

She shushes him impatiently. And then, with a tone of soft amusement, “Why, so you can show it to everyone?”

Kissing her yet again, he hugs her even more tightly.

“Hell yes.”

In the end, there’s about ten minutes of Charlie reading her first book (that they know of, anyway, God only knows what their children are capable of) with minimal interruptions from Teddy and Josie, and by Monday afternoon absolutely everyone who has come within a ten foot radius of Will has watched it. Mac, on the other hand, prides herself for being a bit more subtle, and keeps Charlie in her office for most of the afternoon instead of in daycare, and watches her repeat the performance over and over again for several different audiences.

She leaves work at 5 o’clock with three children in tow, confident that the after dinner routine will be more interesting than it was on Friday.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
